Sam LaCrosse is the founder of VEA (Value Economics Academy), and now VEE (Value Economics Entrepreneur), which aims to help top-flight corporate talent realize their entrepreneurial potential.
For LaCrosse, building out VEE never would have happened had VEA never taken off.
“You don’t know if something is going to work until you actually go out there and try,” the Austin resident acknowledges, but, as captured recently, VEA has indeed ingratiated itself to a client base starved for values-related guidance.
As a result, LaCrosse, who until July 2024 worked for the second-largest tech company in the world, is now a full-fledged business owner, the comforts of traditional employment no longer buoying his professional affairs.
To get to this point, LaCrosse appealed to men in The Standard, a nationwide networking organization run by Hafeez Baoku and Joseph Hines, but he’s also attracted clients by curating online content that resonates with his ideal demographic.
“Organic social media content,” LaCrosse cites as the key factor in this ascension, his 1-minute reels filmed in his spacious Austin home short on production quality, but high on implementable value.
“I haven’t spent a dollar on outside marketing or advertising,” LaCrosse adds.
With VEA thriving, some wondered why LaCrosse felt compelled to infuse another layer into his business model, but the Amazon best-selling author believes that his new wrinkle, VEE, will broaden his outreach and assist corporate afterthoughts who are currently contemplating making their own plunge into entrepreneurship.
“The new model will be more sustainable,” LaCrosse says, then noting how with VEE there will be less cohorts and more group sessions geared toward outlining a specific pathway for his clients.
“But my plan is still to serve as many people as possible in a scalable way.”
Based on the early results of VEA, it’s likely VEE will follow the same trajectory.
“With VEA, we ultimately reframed the way that my clients view life, and that trickles into their relationships, finances, and social lives, among other things,” LaCrosse explains.
And in a culture where toxicity belies almost all self-help content, LaCrosse is the antithesis to the garbage that all-too-frequently permeates online platforms.
“Too often, I see people outsource self-help to people who don’t know them or care about them,” LaCrosse mentions, in reference to dating gurus and life coaches whose sole motivation is to profit off their clients’ abject loneliness and despair.
“With what I do though, I am cultivating autonomy and showing people that they have a lot more control over their lives than they may initially think.”
With VEA, and now VEE, LaCrosse is not guaranteeing his clients that they will land a suitable girlfriend or secure a lucrative promotion, but he will give them a framework that’s devoid of tacky strategies and philosophies lacking in substance.
In some ways, LaCrosse’s job is to optimize the white space on his clients’ calendars and reiterate basic, commonly-held truths so that they don’t get lost in the malaise of unintelligible noise echoing through various channels.
“I specialize in reminding people what specific foundational pillars will make them successful,” LaCrosse says.
In its first year of operation, VEA has led to clients scrapping their pornography addictions, starting businesses, penning books, making more money, and most importantly, establishing an ideological framework that will serve them in perpetuity.
This very well may be just the start of LaCrosse’s impact, because as he expands into VEE and seeks to spark a counter to the monotony of 9-5 life, he’s once again well-armed with guidance from those who have come before him.
Whereas Owen Sammarone helped LaCrosse bring VEA to market and profitability, Brandon Forbes is now keying LaCrosse in on what will make VEE become equally revered.
“Brandon fully understands the nuances of scaling a business,” LaCrosse insists.
In practice, LaCrosse will now pump more ads into the algorithm in order to reach a larger audience, but the Cleveland native is also putting more of an emphasis on selling an outcome versus a system.
“What Brandon helped me understand is that I didn’t previously have a definitive outcome. I was selling the blueprint for creating a value system for an individual, but for those who aren’t willing to put in that work, they’re not going to be enticed by my offer,” LaCrosse explains.
Now, with VEE, LaCrosse isn’t just encouraging people to pursue entrepreneurship because it’s possible.
Instead, he will quite literally be giving them the blueprint, his recent exodus from big-tech serving as the launching pad for this next evolution.
“When I left Corporate America, that shocked people,” says LaCrosse, who is not shy about telling people that he turned down a $400,000 compensation package to pursue that which is meaningful to him.
More importantly, LaCrosse’s bold decision led to others wondering aloud whether they too could replicate that type of self-confidence.
“And then that became the outcome that I want to sell with VEE,” LaCrosse says.
Moving forward, LaCrosse is fully aware that convincing even a fraction of the talented yet unfulfilled corporate types to walk away from the stability offered by their employers will be difficult.
“It will also require a degree of luck, but I know the value proposition is there. Now it’s a matter of marketing it correctly,” LaCrosse says.
In a market rife with employees but short on aspirational individuals, LaCrosse is confident that opportunity is there for those willing to take calculated risks.
“The entrepreneurship rate in this country has fallen off a cliff, which is too bad, because I truly believe that if an individual is committed, and consistently puts forward effort, they will eventually be successful in whatever endeavor they pursue,” LaCrosse asserts.
“Working off that, if I can get people to realize that and then act upon it, then this venture [VEE] could ultimately be something that sets me up for life and makes society a better place.”
Looking ahead, the main thing will remain the main thing for LaCrosse, in that he will continue to search for innovative ways to uplift his fellow man, but in a few short years he will be thirty, and as a devout Christian, LaCrosse has ambitions of becoming a husband and father; two labels that were initially mentioned two years ago when I first interviewed him.
“What’s driving me is that I know this part of my life is going to end, because I know what my desired end state is, which is to have a wife and 4-6 kids, and then go off and spend a lot of time with them.”
He’s almost there, but first, there will be people to help, and a mold to break.
“The internet misleads people when they say they should quit their job and exit the matrix. You don’t just leave Corporate America. You need to have a plan in place, and as someone who has done that, I can be that advisor who takes them step-by-step through the process,” LaCrosse says.
“When people start to experience how possible it is to leave Corporate America, I think it will inspire a movement that will have a massive impact and change lives.” QS
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